OF SELBORNE. 345 



edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to 

 contemplate the devastations of the night: they then 

 found that a deep rift or chasm, had opened under their 

 houses, and torn them, as it were, in two; and that one 

 end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner ; that 

 a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange re- 

 verse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice 

 versa ; that many large oaks were removed out of their 

 perpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into 

 the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that a gate was 

 thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so as to re- 

 quire a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the 

 cliff, the general course of the ground, which is pasture, 

 inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is 

 interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in 

 every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, 

 as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began ; 

 and running across the lane, and under the buildings, 

 made such vast shelves that the road was impassable 

 for some time; and so over to an arable field on the 

 other side, which was strangely torn and disordered. 

 The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, 

 was protruded forward without many fissures in the 

 turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, 

 lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of 

 this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against 

 the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther 

 course and terminated this awful commotion. 



The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, 

 is twenty-three yards ; the length of the lapse, or slip, 

 as seen from the fields below, one hundred and eighty- 

 one ; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, ex- 

 tends seventy yards more : so that the total length of 

 this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one 

 yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this vio- 

 lent convulsion: two houses were entirely destroyed; 

 one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the walls being 

 cracked through the very stones that composed them ; 

 a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock ; and 



